


On the counter of your untamed guilt

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Past Rape/Non-con, but no depictions in the story, themes of forgiveness, unofficial sequel to another work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 11:31:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4664925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never apologized for what he did to Steve and Bucky’s son, to their whole family. He’s rehearsed this moment for decades; it’s time to stop being a coward and take what he deserves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the counter of your untamed guilt

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Could Never Prepare You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4538958) by [Dira Sudis (dsudis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis). 



> This story is inspired by the incredible work "Could Never Prepare You" by the amazing author Dira Sudis. I highly, highly recommend you read that story. In fact, this fic won't really make sense if you don't. If you're interested in reading this without reading the first piece, I'm going to post a small summary of events at the bottom (to avoid spoilers) so that you can get what you need. 
> 
> Link to the work: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4538958
> 
> The title of this story is from the song "Forgive Yourself" by Downhere.
> 
> Warnings: This story contains discussion of past rape, rape victims blaming themselves, and emotional moments discussing the above. If you're going to read Dira Sudis' work, please read the warnings on that one as well.

Sargent Benjamin Samuels snapped to attention as the General walked into the room. He stared off into the distance directly in front of him, just as he was meant to. Nevertheless, the man was grateful for the fact that it was an excuse not to have to meet the General’s eyes just yet. There was no reason to expect the man would know who he was, not at first at least. In Ben’s mind though, the conclusion was forgone. He’d taken this assignment with full knowledge of what was going to happen. 

General Rogers brought his fingers to his forehead in response, briefly, before lowering them. Ben relaxed into parade rest but didn’t change his line of sight. “Sergeant Samuels,” the blonde man said pleasantly. “Please, there’s no need to be so formal. We’re going to be working very closely,” the older man chuckled. 

“Yes sir,” he said softly, falling out of the ‘resting’ position and standing normally. The General extended his right hand outwards. 

“Steve Rogers, pleasure to meet you Sergeant.”

Ben clasped the other man’s hand firmly. “Benjamin Samuels, sir, and the pleasure is all mine.”

Rogers waved him off. “Not all of it I’m sure. Sergeant First Class after only eleven years of service? I’m glad to have you as part of my team. Despite my popularity amongst civilians, most of the bureaucrats tend to be… displeased with my squad. You’d likely continue climbing the ranks much faster on another assignment.”

The last sentence was a statement, but Ben knew there was a hint of a question in it as well. Was he willing to compromise his rapid career growth for the sake of the squad? The man had a good point. General Rogers did his job no matter what anyone else thought about it, and he had no reservations against telling the press exactly what he thought about the matter. He’d ruined political careers before, and the big wigs hated him as much as they feared him. 

“Promotions aren’t why I joined the Army, sir.”

“Oh, then what are you here for?” the General asked curiously.

Ben studied him a bit, meeting his eyes. It was hard to gauge the blonde man’s age. By some ways of counting he was one-hundred and eighteen years old; by others, he was forty-five. He didn’t look much older than Ben himself, though. He hadn’t been much older when Ben had… well. 

“I joined the Army because I wanted to be able to help people who couldn’t help themselves,” Ben said softly, solemnly, not breaking eye contact with the older man, the better man. General Rogers smiled.

“That’s admirable.” It wasn’t a platitude, Ben didn’t think. Rogers sounded sincere, and he’d never been known to lie about his feelings. “Sometimes I feel like the Army isn’t the best place to do good anymore,” the blonde said wryly, looking a bit regretful. 

“Sometimes, sir, I feel the same way,” Ben admitted. “That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to serve under you.”

“Well I’m honored to hear you say that, Sergeant,” the General smiled, clapping him on the shoulder companionably. “It’s always a pleasure to have truly good men on my squad. I can tell you’re going to be a great addition to the team.”

“Yes sir,” Ben answered quietly. He could only hope that General Rogers would feel the same way once he found out.

~

It had been a week and a half since Ben had started working for Rogers. Every day, he walked into the office expecting to be fired, to be confronted, anything. Every day, he walked out and the General wished him a good night cheerfully. He’d been dreading the conversation but also longing for it. At least then, it would be out there. The longer Ben took, the more he was realizing that he was going to have to fess up himself. For some reason, he’d assumed that Rogers would just _know_ , that he would look into his background and find out, put the pieces together. It had seemed that the other man only cared about his military history, however. 

It took most of his courage just to knock on the blonde man’s door, after everyone else had left the office. Ben knew that it wasn’t going to be nearly as much courage as he’d need to do the rest, though.

“Come in.”

Ben walked through the door, shutting it behind him. The General smiled. “Sergeant Samuels! Sit! You should be home by now. Take it from someone who knows: working isn’t worth nearly as much as watching your son grow up.”

Ben couldn’t help but wince at the reminder. The blonde man raised an eyebrow. “You know,” he said conversationally. “I’ve learned something over the years about reading people. It’s what’s kept me so successful at my job. From the moment we met I knew that there was something that you needed to say to me, and I figured that you’d come to me when you were ready. Guess that’s now, huh?”

The words were gentle, encouraging. Ben knew that he didn’t deserve it. “Yes sir,” he agreed softly, taking a seat. A few seconds passed, silent. The General and laced his fingers together, leaning forward so that his chin was on his hands and his elbows on the desk in front of him. Ben took a deep breath. 

“Actually, your son and I went to school together,” he began.

Rogers’ eyebrows flew up, and he smiled. “Oh? You knew Teddy? You must be… hm, a few years older than him. I imagine that I never met you. Kids don’t really make friends outside their age group that much.”

Ben just nodded lamely. He’d spent years thinking about how to begin this conversation, but hadn’t anticipated just how difficult it would be. “I… I was a cruel child,” he murmured. 

The blonde just shook his head. “Every child is cruel, sometimes. That doesn’t make them bad. Teddy got into scraps all the time growing up. Is that what this was about? Just because you didn’t get along with my son when you were a boy doesn’t mean that you can’t work for me now,” chuckled the General. 

Ben lowered his eyes to the desk. He thought that he could be man enough to say it to Rogers’ face, but that wasn’t going to happen. The Sergeant continued, not acknowledging the other man’s words. “When I was nine years old—your son was five, then, only in kindergarten—I…” He took another deep breath, and raised his eyes to meet the General’s. He owed the man that much. “When I was nine I showed your son a video.”

General Rogers furrowed his brow, for a moment looking confused. Then, after an agonizing moment, his eyes widened in realization. Slowly, all emotion drained from his face like water dripping out of a bucket, gradual and smooth. Finally, the man looking at him might as well have been carved from marble. The blonde didn’t appear angry, but still Ben felt a thrum of terror jolt through him. This wasn’t the jovial General Rogers that he’d come to know. Sitting before him was the legend, the Avenger, Captain America. 

“I see,” the man said simply. In some ways, Ben thought that shouting would make him feel less like scum. At least anger he was prepared for. 

There was nowhere to go but forward. “Back then, I didn’t know- no, that’s not fair.” After a decade spent rehearsing this speech, he was still screwing it up. “I did know what I was doing. This isn’t an excuse, but I didn’t understand then just how much my actions were hurting you and your family.”

There was another pause. “And you think you understand now?” There was no disbelief in the words, no condemnation or scorn. The General’s tone was flat, emotionless. Still, Ben could guess that the other man was feeling all of those emotions anyway.

Ben finally broke eye contact, glancing down to the side of the desk. He didn’t want to see the other man’s face for this part. If Rogers pitied him, well… the Sergeant didn’t deserve to feel it. “I was raped when I was seventeen,” he said simply. It wasn’t the first time Ben had spoken this aloud, and twelve years had passed since. Although it was still painful, it was an old wound. “My rapist filmed it, posted it online. It’s hounded me for years, knowing that people are still watching it somewhere, that no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be able to get rid of it. That video will probably live longer than I will.”

His eyes snapped back to the General’s, jaw clenching. Ben was grateful to see that the other man’s face remained blank. He didn’t think he could handle pity right now. “What happened to me doesn’t excuse what I did to your family, not by any means. But the thought of someone doing to my son what I did to yours… it haunts me. I have nightmares about it.” Trevor was five years old, now. He’d been pretty young to have a child, nowadays, but the military did that to you. Trevor was the same age now that Teddy had been. “When I was nine I didn’t know the pain I was going to cause you, how powerless it would make your husband feel, how that helplessness could be just as bad as the rape itself, sometimes. 

“Now I do know, and I understand better how sorry I should have been years ago. That’s why I’m here: to apologize. I’m so incredibly sorry for showing your son that video, and I’m so sorry that it took me twenty years to tell that to you.”

The room was deathly silent as General Rogers studied him, peering deeply into his eyes. Finally, he spoke. “I’m sorry for what happened to you,” the man began, solemnly. “But I don’t think that I’m the one you should be apologizing to.”

Ben shook his head. “You’re not the _only_ person I should be apologizing to, but that doesn’t make you any less worthy of hearing it.” He’d hurt people that Rogers loved; the man deserved an apology as well. He knew what the man was asking though. “After I was raped,” Ben began softly, “I never wanted to see him again, not in court, not in my house, nowhere. I thought about it sometimes, if I would want him to apologize to me, but there’s nothing he could say that would ever make me feel better. No amount of repentance or genuine guilt would matter to me. I don’t want to ever have to deal with being face-to-face with him, and certainly not to soothe his guilty conscience. Maybe your husband wants my apology, but I wasn’t about to force him to relive those events if he never wanted to talk to me.”

The General nodded, staring almost blankly at a point to the left of Ben’s head. “Should I tender my resignation?” he asked softly.

The man’s eyes snapped back to his. “No. What you did was horrible, but it was twenty years ago, and I know that you’re sorry about it. This doesn’t have to affect our professional relationship.” Rogers didn’t say anything about their personal relationship though, and Ben had the feeling that he wouldn’t be getting any more cheerful goodbyes from the man. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Recognizing the dismissal, and having said everything he’d came to say, Ben stood from the office. “Goodnight, General,” he said before leaving the office. There was no response. 

~

Timidly, Ben raised his hand to the bell, ringing it with a press of his finger. It was Saturday, three days after his conversation with Rogers. The man had told him that his husband had wanted to see him, after all. The door opened, and a handsome looking middle-aged black man appeared behind it. 

“You must be Sergeant Samuels,” the man said neutrally.

“Lieutenant Wilson,” he greeted, nodding. 

The other man laughed. “It’s been a very long time since my Air Force days. Call me Sam.”

“Yes sir.”

“And none of that sir bullshit either. Come on in.” Wilson led him into the house. He didn’t seem too angry or judgmental, but then again the man had been a VA therapist. He was used to dealing with men and women who’d done terrible things, though probably none so personal. “Sorry that Steve isn’t here. We weren’t expecting you so early. Bucky’s in the kitchen.”

Ben wanted to stop and give Wilson the same apology that he’d given his boss, but he didn’t know if the other man wanted to talk to him about that. Rogers had told him that Barnes wanted to speak with him; he hadn’t said anything about his other partner. The man once called Falcon opened the kitchen door, ushering him inside. “Hey Bucky, this is Sergeant Samuels. I’ll go ahead and leave you two alone.”

Barnes looked good. The older man was starting to get wrinkles, signs of his age, but it was nothing considering that he’d been born over a century ago. Most of his wrinkles were in the form of laugh-lines, and there was a healthy glow to him that was strange to Ben. He understood, intellectually, that the other man had many people who loved him, but when he’d imagined this moment he’d always remembered the beaten, bloody form he’d seen decades ago on his phone. The metal-armed man waved him in. Ben gulped at the sight of it. The arm reminded him of the video, and what he’d done. It was probably for the best though; he didn’t want to forget what he did to deserve this. 

“Take a seat,” Barnes said cheerfully. “Do you want something to drink? We have water, juice, a beer?”

Ben did as he was told, feeling a bit wrong-footed. “Uh, no sir,” he said once he’d sat down. 

Barnes waved at him dismissively. “None of that ‘sir’ nonsense. Call me Bucky or nothing at all.”

“Er, yes si- I mean, yes,” he finished lamely. Bucky just smiled at him. A beat passed. “I came here to apologize to you,” Ben started.

The brunet nodded. “Yeah, Steve told me what you said to him.”

Ben swallowed roughly. “I’m so sorry for what I did to your son. I’m so sorry for the way it must have made you feel. I can only imagine how awful it was for you, and the thought of causing you so much pain makes me feel sick even now. You didn’t deserve to have your trauma dug up like that, in front of your _son_ … you didn’t deserve to have your control taken from you again. If there’s anything I could ever to do make it up to you, please let me know,” he begged.

Bucky nodded at him. “I forgive you,” he responded, a small smile on his face, and compassion in his eyes. 

There was a moment of silence while Ben’s jaw worked, trying to find something to say. “You do?” he asked hoarsely. 

“Yeah,” the other man nodded, like it was easy. “Did you expect me to yell at you or something?”

“Honestly? Yes,” Ben admitted. “What I did was terrible. It shouldn’t be that easy.”

“It _was_ terrible,” the brunet agreed. “And I did hate you for a while, but Benjamin, that was twenty years ago. You were nine years old.”

“I knew what I was doing!” Ben protested. “Maybe I didn’t understand the consequences, but I wanted to hurt your son, and that’s what I did. My age shouldn’t excuse it.”

Bucky shook his head. “You see, Sergeant, I don’t think this is about me, not entirely. I believe that you’re sorry, and that you hate yourself for what you did back then, and that you want for me to be okay. But the truth is that I am okay. I have a fantastic life, two loving partners and a wonderful son. I have all the blessings I could have ever asked for. And I’ve lived through truly terrible things, things that no human being should ever have to suffer. It took me years, but I’ve come to accept that if I dwelled on everything that hurt me in the past, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate everything that makes me happy now. 

“Benjamin, I’ve been where you are. I’ve lived a very long life, and I’ve made so many terrible, terrible mistakes. I hurt a lot of people, and even though it wasn’t my fault, it still weighs on me. There was a time when I held onto those feelings, that guilt and anger and sadness, because I thought that I deserved it. I wanted to feel all those things; it felt like I wasn’t good enough to be happy after what I did. If you’re anything like me—and I think you are—I imagine that you’re feeling the same way.”

“I do deserve it though,” Ben whispered. He didn’t realize that he was crying until a hiccup cut off his sentence. “If someone did to my boy what I did to yours… I would hate them forever. Sometimes…” He drew in a ragged breath. “Sometimes I think that what happened to me was a punishment for what I did to you, like God wanted me to understand how awful it was,” he whispered. Ben had never admitted that to anyone before. 

Immediately, Bucky stood up. The sudden scrape of his chair against the tile made Ben jump. The older man came around the table to stand beside him, and he half expected to get hit. The brunet put a hand on the back of Ben’s head, but just gently drew him forward, until he was sobbing onto the man’s stomach. His hands came up almost unconsciously to grasp at the back of Bucky’s t-shirt. 

“No one deserves what happened to us,” the older man said firmly. “If you don’t believe anything else that I say, believe that. I forgive you, Benjamin. I forgave you a long time ago, and hating yourself isn’t helping me at all. It’s not helping Teddy either. He’s got a fantastic life, and he had a fantastic childhood. We had a tough time, but we moved past it, just like we moved past every hard thing that came our way. You did _not_ deserve to be raped, and you don’t deserve to hate yourself because of your past, either. You’ve done your best to dedicate your career to helping others. You took a job that could torpedo your chance at a promotion because it was the right thing to do. You’re a good man, Sergeant Samuels, and I’m glad that you’re serving with my husband.”

Ben wasn’t sure how to respond; he wasn’t even sure if he could respond, he was trembling so hard. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know,” Bucky replied softly. “It’s okay, I know.” The man gently pushed his shoulders back, so that he could look Ben in the eye. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll be fine. Wanna know how I know?”

“How?” he asked, helpless.

“Because you’ve got the same reason to pull yourself through this as I did. You’ve got a son at home who thinks the world of you, who loves you like crazy. You’ll be okay because eventually, you’ll realize that you’ve gotta figure out how to love yourself, to forgive yourself so that you can drop your baggage and be the dad he needs you to be.”

Ben laughed a bit through his hiccups. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Sergeant, take as much time here as you need, but then _go home_. Go home and hug your kid, tell him you love him. All that guilt and anger you’re feeling? Leave it here. Go home and stop living in the past, so that you can start appreciating all of the good things you’ve got right now. Trust me, it’s worth it.”

The younger man wiped at his eyes, pulling himself together. “Right… Thank you, sir. I can’t- I don’t know what else to say. Thank you.”

Bucky grinned, but swatted at his shoulder lightly. “You’re welcome. Now, stop wasting my time with all this negative talk. It’s been years since Teddy moved out and I’ve missed child-rearing like I never thought I would. Tell me about your son,” he ordered.

Shakily, Ben reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet. He carried pictures with him everywhere he went. “Trevor’s such a little scamp,” he laughed wetly. “He always gets into stuff that he shouldn’t. This one’s of him covered in chocolate sauce.”

“Yeah, Teddy was the same way. Total handful, that kid.”

As he talked, the horrible things that Ben had been feeling for himself started to fade away, replaced by the love and affection he felt for Trevor. It was nice, to finally let himself think about his son without also thinking about the little boy who he’d hurt. He still owed Teddy an apology, but for the first time in over a decade, it wasn’t a burning, consuming need. Bucky was right, no matter what he did in the past, no matter what happened to him, what was most important was raising Trevor. 

Ben continued chatting to Bucky, but he felt his chest swelling with gratitude. It was incredible, how happy the other man was, even after all the horrible things that he’d done and had been done to him, he could still live a good life. Maybe… maybe eventually, Ben would get a chance to do the same. 

~

**Author's Note:**

> Brief summary of the relevant parts of "Could Never Prepare You": Bucky, Steve, and Sam are in a committed relationship and have a five year old son named Teddy. One day at school, some older boys trick him into watching a video of the time that Bucky was raped in Hydra captivity. Sudis' work deals with Bucky and his family coming to terms with Teddy finding out in such an awful way.


End file.
